


Fire and the Flood

by byewitch



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Fan Characters, Gen, M/M, My First Work in This Fandom, enjoy, in this one Bellatrix Lestrange's daughter needs to navigate Hogwarts and help her mess of a cousin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:02:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25017442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/byewitch/pseuds/byewitch
Summary: A collection of sporadically written chapters with more or less correlation between them. It follows Nadia Lestrange, daughter of Bellatrix and Rodolphus Lestrange during her time at Hogwarts when she discovers in her 7th year that her 3rd year cousin Draco Malfoy has been writing letters to Harry Potter under an alias and has begun to fall for the Chosen One. Meanwhile, Nadia has her own issues to settle, including magic that doesn't listen to her and renders her the useless daughter of two infamous Death Eaters, a destiny which will be more or less explored in this particular work of fiction and how to keep her head above water in a world yet to be discovered to its fullest.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley
Kudos: 1





	Fire and the Flood

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, the title is in fact idem to that one Vance Joy song I listen to frequently when writing. 
> 
> I guess one should include actual notes in the notes and not incessant rambling as I first planned (or rather, expected. I never know what will be written until it's been typed). I have a bad habit of not planning ahead. Nadia's story has been at the back of my mind for the past year or so, ever since Harry Potter has inadvertently become a major part of my life as well as means and a way for me to escape irksome events in my life. The character has inherited my sense of humour and sarcasm and she is in many ways a method for me to explore both the Harry Potter universe as well as the mystical art of character creation and relationship development in fiction. I wouldn't exactly call myself an aspiring writer, for I write out of fun and boredom (both of those, more often than not) and the story unravelling here has plenty of cracks and gaps through which common sense and many storytelling laws sneak out, never to be seen again. Therefore, take it with a grain of salt.
> 
> This tale will follow mainly Nadia, Draco and Harry and I hope I've managed to give them distinct enough voices, polished enough to be enjoyed separately but eventually embody the entirety that is "Fire and the Flood". There will be several notes from the author (can you believe that's me?!) establishing the time, place and some other trifling details before each chapter so they can be somewhat cohesive but will most likely end up jumping all over the place. 
> 
> A little background on Nadia (aside from what will be mention in the work): born to Bellatrix and Rodolphus Lestrange on January 22nd 1976, she was sent to live with Andromeda Tonks by choice of Kingsley Shacklebolt, following Nadia's birth to her, at the time, imprisoned mother. After her enrolment at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, she had one of the longest recorded hat-stalls in the school's history, eventually being placed in Ravenclaw, in defavour of Slytherin. 
> 
> Hopefully, in some distant future, granted I keep up this absurdity, "Fire and the Flood" will be developed into a full length narrative telling Nadia's story who meanwhile transcended the boundaries of a "prototype character" and grew to be the lovable idiot I know she is. For the time being, I hope you will enjoy this tale and its myriad of plot holes, in hope of a fully fledged story one day.

[ Takes place at the end of Draco's third year, respectively Nadia's seventh ]

Quiet, shaky sobs were drifting outside the bathroom doors the same way ghosts wander in and out of walls and rays of moonlight; almost inaudible unless you knew to listen for them. And Nadia knew and did it more often than not- her hearing became sharper whenever she passed by Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom, her breathing slowed down almost to a stop and stepping closer, hardly touching the floor with the soles of her shoes, she pressed her ear to the worn out wood and concentrated.

A sniff, then another sob followed by whispered words of anger and misery. It was Draco Malfoy’s own pity party belonging to the girl’s bathroom on the second floor and to Myrtle’s querying ghost ears from somewhere inside a tarnished pipe. Nadia, stock-still, kept her ear glued to the blistery wood and waited until the uneven breathing turned into mellow, steady whirs.

She pushed the door open and stepped in, the musky smell filling her nostrils brutally and taking a trip into her gut where it mingled with the remains of her lunch. Nadia tried not to think about the upcoming dinner, begging her insides to stay upright and not spill out of her in vile waves. As always, whenever you try not thinking about something, it invades your conscience the same way an annoying relative visiting for the holidays barges in your room to pinch your cheeks; Nadia didn’t want her cheeks pinched.

Sitting on the ivory tiles near the neglected sinks and mirrors was Draco Malfoy and she would rather concentrate on that.

He seemed to have discarded both his robes and jumper somewhere alongside his school bag, and was sitting with his back against a pipe and his knees drawn up. The sleeves of his shirt were soaked and Nadia couldn’t tell if the cause were his tears or the water slowly but steadily becoming a puddle around Draco’s black shoes. His head was buried beneath his arms so he didn’t hear nor see Nadia stoop down holding the hem of her robes and started frantically when her hand touched one of his knees.

‘Hey, relax. It’s me,’ she said gingerly, Draco’s eyes boring holes into what she hoped was a kindhearted exterior. Nadia wasn’t sure he would take it as a loving act, which led her to tip-toe with everything from her words to how she stared back into his moonlit face.

‘What are you doing here? Get the fuck away from me!’ As if Nadia’s hand had burnt a hole through the cotton of his trousers, Draco leapt up, his hip striking the corner of one sink and drawing a hiss from the pale boy. Struggling to keep her balance and not drop the end of her robes unto the wet floor, Nadia herself got up but kept her distance with only her arms outstretched, mimicking a rider trying to calm his frightened horse.

‘Calm down, I’m alone. No one knows you’re here.’

‘Were you-were you _spying_ on me? What the fuck is _wrong_ with you Lestrange – ‘

‘Hey!’ The sharpness of that one word startled Nadia herself but, unlike Draco who backed away and cowered, she stood her ground. ‘ _Watch it._ I’m not one of your stupid friends you manipulate into doing your homework for you, first of all. And second of all, you’re in the _girls’_ bathroom, so if anyone should be leaving, it’s you.’

Glowering viciously at Nadia, Draco picked up his jumper and tie from under a sink, throwing the former on sloppily. Only now she noticed he was shivering. ‘Fine. Enjoy the bathroom and if you dare tell anyone about this-’

Nadia stared back defiantly. ‘What? You’ll what? Draco- Draco, stop!’ He was one arm through his robes when Nadia pulled at his sleeve, making him snatch his wrist away and drop the open schoolbag in the process. His books and parchment spilled out of it, along with the ink which stained both paper and tiles, mixing with water in what looked like dark snakes swimming across a white seabed.

‘Bloody hell!! WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME??’ Draco bellowed, seemingly not caring about the possibility of someone walking by and hearing his irate screams from inside the girls’ bathroom. Nadia tried shushing him but her attention drifted away when tears started streaming down Draco’s face and he appeared not to notice, instead scrambling to save his parchment in a disheveled Slytherin attire.

At last he gave up, collapsing in a puddle of ink and for the first time noting the hot, damp tears running down his cheeks. He rubbed incessantly at his face, dislodging strands of potently gelled blond hair and closing hastier on anguish when he realized the assault upon his face wouldn’t stop the streams from flowing. Nadia reached out without second thought, fighting his attempts at shoving her and accepting every punch and elbow in the ribs only to wrap her arms around his shaking body and drown out his cries.

She spoke softly next to his ear, hands grasping at anything she could reach and use to hold him in place. ‘It’s alright, Draco. You’re ok, calm down, _please_!’ Finally, finding the other end of his robes, she brought it forward, wrapping them around his fitful frame like a blanket.

‘NO, LEAVE ME ALONE!! JUST GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!!’

If you asked Nadia later for how long she kneeled on the tiles, feeling the water soak her tights and Draco shake and holler in her arms, she would probably turn those few minutes into hours. It felt like both the slowest and the fastest passing moments of her life, the bruises on her body being proof of the time she held her terror-stricken cousin on the second floor’s bathroom and whispered nothings to no one in particular. For she was sure Draco could only hear the screams inside his own mind and Nadia’s voice wasn’t strong enough to overshadow those.

Little by little, Draco’s breathing slowed.

His shaking wasn’t painful for Nadia anymore (though she was hurting on his behalf in other ways) and when he pulled away from her, eyes puffy and skin flushed, his touch didn’t harm her anymore. It was a mere method of putting enough distance in-between them, as for Draco to look at her and make sure she was still there, not leaving him like his Mother left him whenever Father called for her.

‘Wh-Why a-are you h-here?’ his stutter was due to hiccups escaping him every breath and his voice acquired a nasal quality by courtesy of the tears flooding his cheeks not so long ago. Nadia rummaged through her own rucksack and handed him a tissue. He took it without thanking and blew his nose forcefully.

Believing there wasn’t any point in spouting some bullshit and making up a reason for why Nadia found herself walking by the second floor corridor that evening, she settled for the truth. ‘I heard you yell at Pansy and saw her storming off afterwards. Figured you would come here and cry. You always come here and cry after fighting with your friends.’

Draco was too dumbfounded to show any signs of ire, but a flicker of annoyance still flashed behind his eyes and Nadia allowed herself a second of remorse. It was gone in an instant, almost as fast as it came, being instead replaced by a feeling of indignation and mild betrayal – she was his cousin, he could come to her rather than resigning to sobbing on the cold tiles alongside Moaning Myrtle. Nadia was afraid he would turn _into_ Moaning Myrtle. She cried plenty too.

‘T-turns out you s-spy on me plenty, then. Congratulations, you f-found my pity party. You’re still no-not invited.’

Nadia rolled her eyes. ‘ _Must_ you act like such a wanker? If I wanted to embarrass you, I would’ve done so without comforting you first. By far more entertaining when you’re quaffing a concoction of your own snot and tears.’

Draco grunted a ‘Fuck you’ which due to his clogged sinuses came off as _‘Fag u’._ Nadia dissolved into laughter and even Draco risked a bland smirk, with no real bite behind it.

‘You _can_ come to me, you know?’ she went on and Draco dropped his head, staring intently at the hem of his robes. ‘I know I’m not the most loving cousin and I can be a real bitch sometimes, but you haven’t exactly been the most agreeable bloke.’

‘Is that supposed to make me feel better?'

Somewhere in the pipes Myrtle let out a wail.

‘No, it’s supposed to get in your head and stay there. We are each-other’s _family,_ Draco. Whether you like it or not, some mystical power out there decided your mother was going to be my aunt and my mother her sister and I’m afraid not even a gutsy Slytherin can argue with the Universe.’

Biting back a laugh, Draco rolled his eyes and in one powerful sniff managed to choke on his own snot. A few moments of wheezing later, he fixed Nadia with a ‘But one can always try’ and they both doubled up, not caring if anyone happened to walk by the doors in that moment because they were _laughing_. Nadia Lestrange and Draco Malfoy, the offsprings of some of the most ominous Death Eaters, were sitting on the wet girls’ bathroom floor, busting a gut and defying whatever omnipotent being decided to make them commiserate in that moment. It was a big of a middle finger as any.

Not even when Draco opened his mouth to speak next, did Nadia stop laughing. ‘I think I’m in love with Harry Potter,’ he said and the tick of silence that followed was overthrown by another fit of glee from both sides. Nadia felt tears gather at the corner of her eyes and roll down her cheeks and soon enough she was holding her belly and gasping for air from in-between hysterics.

‘What’d you say?’ she rasped and Draco’s words came floating again, seemingly from afar, not holding any visible weight but preying on this moment of joy like hyenas on an oblivious antelope.

‘I think I’m in love with Harry Potter,’ Draco said and the laughter stopped.

‘Oh.’

‘Yeah.’

It was Nadia’s turn to ogle at the floor. She took it one step further and actually dipped her finger in a nearby puddle, watching the floating ink engulf it then morph into dark swirls when she moved her hand over the otherwise still water. It was almost mesmerizing; so delightfully meaningless, it made Nadia envious of the world around her, unaware of how complicated it actually was which allowed it to be effortlessly beautiful, with no underlying motive.

‘So what does that mean?’ she asked eventually, Draco’s body stiff beside hers, his mind grasping multiple concepts at one: he was in the girls’ bathroom, he was in there with his cousin, his cousin Nadia who on more than one occasion proved herself ruthless and went to great lengths to achieve her goals. His cousin who now knew his biggest secret and greatest shame.

Draco shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

‘I _know_ you don’t know. Nobody knows what love is. I meant what does it _mean?_ What are you going to _do_?’

‘What _can_ I do?’ he asked and this time his voice had an edge that came just as suddenly as the prior realization. Nadia decided she didn’t like that edge. Later, after they both grew up and Draco was happy (she had to think he would someday be happy), Nadia would realize it was because the acerbity he mustered sometimes didn’t sound like Draco – it sounded like his father. ‘It’s almost summer. I won’t see him for three months. It will pass by the time we – I, return to school in autumn and by then I’ll have forgotten everything about it and gone back to hating his stupid face.’

Nadia sighed. She knew she wouldn’t be here to witness it and yet, for her own goodnight’s sleep, had to believe Draco would be fine. _He is always fine,_ a voice inside her mind said and Nadia shushed it. This wasn’t _always_ , this was foreign. Foreign and wild and scary and she wanted to hide – no. She wanted to hide _Draco_ from what it meant and what was yet to come.

‘I ain’t got lots of experience with _love_ –’ the very word tasted alien to her and it sent a sour pang razing through her bones – ‘but I know it doesn’t work like that.’

‘How do I even know it _is_ love?’ Draco sounded run-down and verging on despair, as if he was trying to convince not only Nadia, but also himself of the falsity of his feelings. ‘I can’t even stand the bugger most of the time and then what’s left out of my week I spend it staring at his witless mug and loathe him every time he brings up how much of an asshole I am. Merlin I’ve been dreadful to him!’

This new-found awareness seemed to throw him over the edge and Draco let his head collapse in his hands, pulling at his hair and sniffing piteously. Nadia didn’t want to pour salt over the wound and kept her lips firmly shut, stopping the cascade of words from tumbling out and agreeing with her cousin. Yes, he had been terrible. Awful even. But he didn’t need confirmation on something he already knew and appeared to be fighting against for the time being.

She hesitated nonetheless. ‘Have you – err, thought of… Apologizing?’ Nadia could almost hear the answer before it tumbled out of Draco, seemingly of its own accord.

‘Malfoys don’t apologize.’

‘No, of course not.’

They stared at each-other – or rather _through_ each-other. Neither was seeing the other but they were the only ones in the room and they _had_ to look, because for both Nadia and Draco the world was a scary and distasteful place through which they walked hand in hand but pushed each-other off the sidewalk more often than not.

Neither one of them wanted to be the first one to get up and leave. It was like admitting defeat in some unspoken way: Draco would be accepting his feelings and Nadia that she didn’t understand the world as much as she liked to think she did. Draco Malfoy loved Harry Potter and Nadia Lestrange didn’t _get_ that.

It was Draco who finally broke the silence. ‘Will you come visit?’ The question echoed both in the room and inside Nadia’s mind.

‘You think Dumbledore will let me?’ she asked with a titter and Draco shrugged.

‘Does it matter? You can just hop on the Hogwarts Express, hide in a compartment and no one will be remotely surprised when they see you at school in September. You’ve probably flunk all your N.E.W.T.s anyways.’

The remark wasn’t said with any particular malice and Nadia bumped his shoulder jokingly. ‘Way to be supportive, cousin. I assure you, I passed with flying colours.’

‘Yeah,’ said Draco and Nadia was suddenly aware that wasn’t what he wanted to hear. ‘I know you did. You’re a Ravenclaw.’

‘Hey! What’s that supposed to mean?’

The banter was welcomed. The banter was familiar. It kept both of them with their feet on the ground, as cold and damp as it was, and while their minds sought to retaliate with witty remarks, they didn’t have time to wander into dark places and get lost.

‘You think I’ll forget Potter next year?’ Draco asked with a trace of hope flickering and begging to be squashed before it turned into something as dangerous as deception. Nadia hated being the one doing the crushing.

‘I don’t think it’s that easy. Merlin knows I wish it was,’ she said after a moment of hesitation. She also knew Draco didn’t need any pity or words of warning but she felt compelled to deliver them anyways. ‘Listen, you have to keep your family from finding this out. And yes – I know you weren’t planning to, believe me. But this isn’t as easy as hiding a bad grade or a broken vase you knocked off the shelf accidentally. You can’t swipe it under the rug and pretend it’s not there, because next time you walk by barefoot you’ll cut yourself in a shard.’

Draco nodded mournfully. ‘Is it too late for you to fail your exams?’

Nadia reached out and hugged him. This time Draco didn’t hit her.

A while later, after Draco got his tie on right and walked downstairs to the Great Hall for dinner, mumbling a wary “see you later” to Nadia, she took a look in the mirror and saw streaks of black down her cheeks along with her red and puffy eyes. Oddly enough, she had no memory of crying other than the tears of laughter which were definitely not strong enough to dilute mascara. Nadia splashed cold water on her face, shivering at the contact, and was about to leave the room when a square piece of parchment struck her attention and she picked it up from where it was lying on the floor, almost completely soaked.

Figuring it fell out of Draco’s school bag, she settled for returning it to him later but curiosity got the best of her; Nadia’s hands seemed to move of their own accord, shuffling, unfolding – _discovering._ The findings on that piece of paper however, would turn her into a very unlucky archaeologist.

Four words were etched on its surface in Draco’s neat handwriting. Below it, in a scribbly font which Nadia didn’t recognize but had hunch about, was an even more nauseatingly sentence.

_Harry, I like you._

**_I like you too. Who are you?_ **


End file.
